LA leaders urge Obama to end Cuba embargo

[BrainGlutton]

And more. Story here:

Latin American leaders have urged US President-elect Barack Obama to end the 48-year trade embargo on Cuba.

Their call came at a summit in Brazil where they formally accepted Cuba into the Rio Group of 23 Latin American and Caribbean nations.

<snip>

Correspondents say the move is a blow to long-standing US efforts to exclude Cuba from regional organisations.

Cuba was expelled from the Organisation of American States in 1962 at the height of the Cold War.

<snip>

Cuban President Raul Castro, on his first foreign tour since taking over from his brother Fidel earlier this year, has said he is open to meeting Mr Obama to discuss the issue of the embargo.

He described his country’s entry into the Rio Group as a “transcendental moment in our history”.

The Rio Group.

Ball’s in your court, O. How ya gonna play it?

[lalenin]

Can Obama lift the embargo if he wanted to? Wouldn’t it take the US congress to repeal it?

[Whack-a-Mole]

@lalenin

Can Obama lift the embargo if he wanted to? Wouldn’t it take the US congress to repeal it?

A lot of it was done by Executive Order and then later in various laws. I think currently the Helms-Burton Act restricts trade with Cuba so yeah, it’d take Congress to undo it. Thing is Congress has tried over the last several years to lift or at least ease sanctions but Bush kept threatening a veto so it never passed. I’d expect them to try again with Obama and I would be willing to bet he’d let it pass.

[John_Mace]

@Whack-a-Mole

A lot of it was done by Executive Order and then later in various laws. I think currently the Helms-Burton Act restricts trade with Cuba so yeah, it’d take Congress to undo it. Thing is Congress has tried over the last several years to lift or at least ease sanctions but Bush kept threatening a veto so it never passed. I’d expect them to try again with Obama and I would be willing to bet he’d let it pass.

They did? There were enough Senate Republicans on board with that so as to prevent a filibuster? That could be, but I’d like to see a cite before I believed it.

[Whack-a-Mole]

@John_Mace

They did? There were enough Senate Republicans on board with that so as to prevent a filibuster? That could be, but I’d like to see a cite before I believed it.

Looking around I found:

President Bush will veto legislation to ease restrictions on travel and cash payments to Cuba if it reaches his desk, Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman said.

SOURCE: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D06E5D81038F936A15754C0A9649C8B63

As expected, Republican leaders in the House and Senate bowed to White House wishes and scuttled an effort to change Cuba travel policy.

Provisions to strip the Treasury Department of funding to enforce Cuba travel provision were included in both House and Senate spending bills this year. The amendments had broad bipartisan support in both chambers.

But President Bush’s vow to veto any legislation that weakened the U.S. embargo on Cuba prompted GOP leaders to strip the provision from a final Treasury-Transportation spending bill before House and Senate negotiators had a chance to discuss it.

SOURCE: http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-111322755.html

Any loosening of restrictions on the embargo will have to survive the Bush administration’s unremitting anti-Cuba stance, particularly now that Venezuelan oil shipments to Cuba have, in effect, circumvented the U.S. embargo, giving Cuba the necessary time for its own rigs to come online. According to a White House statement, a provision to weaken or lift the sanctions against Cuba is the only such piece of trade-related legislation which could bring about a presidential veto. The threat of a Bush veto has historically defeated congressional efforts to decrease restrictions, and has kept a bill similar to the Moran amendment out of the final Treasury funding measure last year.

SOURCE: http://www.coha.org/2006/07/cuba-embargo-under-growing-siege/

The Senate vote placed the president and Republican Congressional leaders on a collision course, leaving an angry White House threatening to veto an important spending bill that contained the provision easing the travel restrictions and a growing number of lawmakers from both parties demanding an overhaul of the American sanctions against Havana.

In the final dash to approve sweeping appropriations bills, it remains uncertain whether the White House threat is a negotiating ploy and whether supporters of looser travel restrictions could muster a two-thirds majority to override a veto.

SOURCE: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9504E0DE1531F937A15753C1A9659C8B63

[BrainGlutton]

So, if Obama does ask Congress to lift the embargo, how much resistance can he expect?

[Whack-a-Mole]

@BrainGlutton

So, if Obama does ask Congress to lift the embargo, how much resistance can he expect?

The way I am reading it (and admittedly on this I am not particularly well read) Congress has already had bi-partisan support for lifting at least some of the restrictions (or all…no idea). It was just Bush standing in the way. As such it would seem Obama does not need to ask Congress to do anything about this as they will do it anyway. All Obama has to do is sign it.

[appleciders]

Well, he could press for it in his First Hundred Days and get it done quickly and maybe piss off a few Cubans in Florida (who he may need desperately in 2012) or he could quietly sign it later this year when Congress gets around to it. I expect the latter- he seems like he’s going to avoid rocking the boat where possible. Why spend political capital if Congress will probably do this on their own?

Besides, normalizing relations with Cuba will be good for the economy. It won’t pull us out of this downswing, and the effect may or may not be measurable, but it sure won’t hurt.

[BrainGlutton]

@appleciders

Well, he could press for it in his First Hundred Days and get it done quickly and maybe piss off a few Cubans in Florida (who he may need desperately in 2012) . . .

I’m quite certain that if it’s done in 2009, by 2012 they will have gotten over it. Or even come 'round to thanking him.

[OttoDaFe]

@BrainGlutton

I’m quite certain that if it’s done in 2009, by 2012 they will have gotten over it. Or even come 'round to thanking him.

Given the demographics of the most rabid anti-Castroites in Florida, there’s also a fair-to-good chance that they’ll be dead. Which won’t necessarily stop them from voting, but it should mute the vitriol somewhat.

[UltraVires]

@BrainGlutton

I’m quite certain that if it’s done in 2009, by 2012 they will have gotten over it. Or even come 'round to thanking him.

I agree with this. Cubans down here generally support the embargo because they think it is their duty to do their part to help overthrow the Castro regime.

I would think that they could be easily convinced that this embargo isn’t hurting Castro at all, but simply hurting their relatives back home. Plus Florida tourism would see a huge boom. Imagine all of the day cruises from the Keys to Havana.

[lalenin]

@jtgain

I agree with this. Cubans down here generally support the embargo because they think it is their duty to do their part to help overthrow the Castro regime.

I would think that they could be easily convinced that this embargo isn’t hurting Castro at all, but simply hurting their relatives back home. Plus Florida tourism would see a huge boom. Imagine all of the day cruises from the Keys to Havana.

I think Cubans in the US have a pretty good idea of the impact of the embargo on Cubans in the island. The embargo does not prevent Cubans from sending money and goods to relatives in Cuba, but Bush did restrict remittances and travel by Cubans to the island significantly. Those restrictions will almost certainly be lifted right away.

I think when most americans talk about the embargo being lifted they are mostly talking about the lifting of travel restrictions, again those restrictions could probably be lifted without very much controversy, and probably will be. As for trading, the US is already Cuba’s 4th largest trading partner, and the largest exporter of food to Cuba. So the lifting of the embargo will be mostly in making credit available to the Cuban government.

[Lust4Life]

The Cold War is over,Cuba doesn’t appear to be trying to foment revolutions in the Americas so it would be the Statesman like thing to get rid of the embargo,especially as it doesn’t actually seem to achieve anything worthwhile.

[lalenin]

@Lust4Life

The Cold War is over,Cuba doesn’t appear to be trying to foment revolutions in the Americas so it would be the Statesman like thing to get rid of the embargo,especially as it doesn’t actually seem to achieve anything worthwhile.

Sure, but Russian warships just visited Cuba for the first time since 1991.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/4296184.html

[BrainGlutton]

@lalenin

Sure, but Russian warships just visited Cuba for the first time since 1991.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/4296184.html

Sure they weren’t just putting into port as sex tourists?

[John_Mace]

@Whack-a-Mole

Looking around I found:

So, there is support for lifting travel restrictions. That’s different from lifting sanctions.

[SteveG1]

As such it would seem Obama does not need to ask Congress to do anything about this as they will do it anyway. All Obama has to do is sign it.

That looks very likely to happen. Since the fall of the “Red Menace”, it’s pointless anyway to keep the embargo going.

I would think that they could be easily convinced that this embargo isn’t hurting Castro at all, but simply hurting their relatives back home. Plus Florida tourism would see a huge boom. Imagine all of the day cruises from the Keys to Havana.

At this point, unless they are living in a cave or on a mountain, they should have realized this by themselves. After about 50 years, they still haven’t figured it out?

[lalenin]

@SteveG1

That looks very likely to happen. Since the fall of the “Red Menace”, it’s pointless anyway to keep the embargo going.

At this point, unless they are living in a cave or on a mountain, they should have realized this by themselves. After about 50 years, they still haven’t figured it out?

You do realize that Cubans have been coming to the US, more or less continously since 1959. And those that have been in the US since the beginning of the revolution are a minority. From this link:

Cuban immigration to the US:

1959-64 144,732
1965-74 247,726
1975-79 29,508
1980 94,095
1981-89 77,835
1990-93 60,244
1994-2000 174,437

Adding those up 664,337 came to the US after 1965 and know the embargo personally, and only 144,732 left in the immediate aftermath of the revolution.

And the 234,681 that left since 1990 know not just the embargo but also life after the fall of USSR.

[jayjay]

@OttoDaFe

Given the demographics of the most rabid anti-Castroites in Florida, there’s also a fair-to-good chance that they’ll be dead. Which won’t necessarily stop them from voting, but it should mute the vitriol somewhat.

It’s Miami, not Chicago!

[BrainGlutton]

Of course, the ones who did come right after the Revolution are the ones still clinging to the illusion that they will someday go home to the Cuba they remember and get all their expropriated property back. A pipe dream, of course. That Cuba no longer exists and whatever comes after Communism will bear little resemblance to it, and no post-Communist government is going to have the slightest interest in restoration of expropriated property.